PirateBay Founders Jailed

[danlisa]

Read Here



So, providing an index service is a violation of Copyright is it?

I sense the deep pockets of the Entertainment Industry here.

[Dowly]

They were decided to be quilty long before the trial. We'll see how the ruling changes when they appeal to higher courts.

[XabbaRus]

But they were facilitating piracy by indexing links to copyrighted material.

In that way it is no different to people putting links to cracked software here and Neal doing nothing about it.

I don't deny that copyright law has to be reformed but with this case it seems that there was intent and they knew it was copyrighted material.

Now I see the telegraph guy was asking if google for example could be held liable if an internet search provided a return which was a link to illeagly hosted copyright material. I think that is disningeous as the google search is largely automatic so it won't know if the material is legit or not. With pirate bay there was definitely knowledge it was illegal.

[GlobalExplorer]

So the swedish state has finally given in. Jail for providing infrastructure that is very much similar to google.

In other news: Obama will not prosecute torturers.

Depressing. I just hope they win in a higher court. In also hope there will be a new boost to pirate parties world wide, generation X has been apolitical for far too long.

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Now I see the telegraph guy was asking if google for example could be held liable if an internet search provided a return which was a link to illeagly hosted copyright material. I think that is disingenuous as the google search is largely automatic so it won't know if the material is legit or not. With pirate bay there was definitely knowledge it was illegal.

It's hard to call TBH.

Yes, the majority of indexed links on PriateBay are illegally distributed items however, P2P sites such as these were initially created to share user created/un-copyrighted material. Not all torrents are illegal.

Also, yes I concede that they probably did initially create TPB to share illegal files but that's a hard thing to prove in court. I think a modicum of assumption has been applied to this case. That's not correct for a profile of this size.

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by GlobalExplorer

I just hope they win in a higher court. In also hope there will be a new boost to pirate parties world wide, generation X has been apolitical for far too long.

For every one that gets taken down, 2 more arise.

The interweb is too large to police effectively.

[XabbaRus]

That's the thing but with a name like pirate bay I think that is a fair assupmtion.

Next up to be jailed: Google owners for enabling copy protection violation, allowing minors to access porn and a whole host of other illegal activities.

[XabbaRus]

Sorry Rilder I think that is taking it to extremes of silliness to make a point. Looking at what these guys did and going by the name they were quite complicit in diseminating copyrighted material illegally. Say waht you will but copyright holders do have the right to protect their stuff.

I'm not saying they always go about it the right way and I don't think the law is sorted out as it never foresaw the digital age but to spout that is just disingenious.

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Read Here



So, providing an index service is a violation of Copyright is it?

I sense the deep pockets of the Entertainment Industry here.

Uhh the pirate bay is a bit more then a indexing service, they also provide the trackers themselves, and that is a key difference.

Now if they only offered the torrent files with out tracking services that would be a different story.

As for copyright i think it needs some major reforms myself, like the expirey period.

[porphy]

These guys got sentenced 1 year in prison and 30 millions to pay. They were found guilty as accomplices for the crime of illegal file sharing for 20 songs 9 movies and 4 computer games. The court case was about this specific material only and the Pirate Bays part in how this media content was made available for illegal distribution. Whatever one thinks about illegal file sharing, the punishment for the specific crime tried in court is totally ridiculous.

The initial amount of money claimed from the legal right holders was 100 millions. Everyone knows there is no established or very clear way to calculate this stuff. It will be interesting to see how the court reasons to establish that sum of 30 millions... Compared to other cases, like manslaughter or even a cruel murder, where the guilty part might have to pay some feeble sum for their crime this really makes me think something is wrong in parts of the legal system.

These guys obviously advocate totally free file sharing without control of the content. Voicing that idea is not a crime, not even when you run a bit torrent server where copyright material is found indexed. It seems to me that they where in part convicted for their thoughts and attitude to the whole media industry and copyright holders. They played hard and fast, trusting that the bit torrent technology would protect them, that is, if no illegal content were ever stored on their server or passed through they would be safe. They were probably found guilty as they didn't care about the consequences, which actually can be a crime in some cases. But as other have pointed out, there are a lot of companies out there that doesn't care at all if their services are used for making illegal file sharing easy, as long as their customers pays them good money....

During the trial the question was asked if the legal right holders had tried to locate or contact the persons who uploaded the torrent files for the movies etc. The answer was in every case "no". They didn't even try to find the guys that actually committed the crime, but went only for The Pirate Bay guys and wanted them convicted as sort of accomplices in the crime, which someone else they never had any contact with decided to do. The case, as presented in court, was not very strong in some parts, and I can't shake of the feeling that the guys were found guilty and heavily fined from the the reasoning of something like this: "we already know that they advocate totally free file sharing, and that means they accept crime, and that means that The Pirate Bay was set up to make illegal file sharing easy". Yes, maybe, but I don't think that was very well proved in court, and certainly not with respect to the specified illegally spread material, which The Pirate Bay never handled or distributed themselves.



I look forward to follow the next trial, in this case.


cheers Porphy

[porphy]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

Uhh the pirate bay is a bit more then a indexing service, they also provide the trackers themselves, and that is a key difference.

Now if they only offered the torrent files with out tracking services that would be a different story.

As for copyright i think it needs some major reforms myself, like the expirey period.

True, but if I remember the trial correctly they never managed to show that the files they had downloaded as evidence actually were fully tracked through The Pirate Bay. If I understand the thing right, the torrent file can and do often contain more than one tracker. So in theory, you can download a torrent file from one site,say The pirate Bay, but the tracker used is provided elsewhere or even from more than one place?

[Aramike]

Erm, wasn't it called PIRATEBAY?

[GlobalExplorer]

But you can't be sentenced for the name, otherwise quite a few Rock Bands would be in jail too.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by GlobalExplorer

But you can't be sentenced for the name, otherwise quite a few Rock Bands would be in jail too.

No, but if the name describes the activity it's called evidence.